dose anybody know the story of mary whitehouse and the national viewers assoication?

Answer 1

Whitehouse had opinions, based on her interpretations of christian values, on what should be decent and moral in terms of media coverage, and founded an organization to promote them. Her organization was very vocal and active in the UK and was sometimes successful but also took much criticism. Whitehouse retired as president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association in 1994. She died at aged 91 in a nursing home in 2001

Answer 2

What story? Mrs Whitehouse was a bossy old woman who set up her own organisation which she called The National Viewers and Listeners Association, although there was never any evidence that is represented anybody 'nationally', and any body other than a few fuddy-duddies who thought that sex was A BAD THING. She attempted to campaign to 'clean up' television (whatever that may mean) and would complain whenever there was (in her opinion only) a breach of her own narrow view of what was morally 'right' She tried one or two private prosecutions under ancient blasphemy laws but wasn't very successful. Nothing really came of her 'campaign'

Apparently the organisation is still in existence - see link below - but since the death of its founder in 2001 is hardly ever heard of.

Answer 3

Roy Hattersley does. He wrote a newspaper article entitled "I hate to say it, but I was wrong about Mary Whitehouse".

He began, "Forty years ago, I dismissed Mary Whitehouse as a bad joke. It seemed absurd that a middle-aged woman with a crinkly face and West Midlands accent should aspire to lead a national campaign to 'clean up' radio and television. My friends... [believed] British broadcasting would be subject to the sort of censorship they associated with totalitarian regimes. I just laughed. It was the Sixties... and I had no doubt that the new age of intellectual and moral freedom would last for ever."

"In a sense, I was right. The restraints which Mrs Whitehouse's National Viewers' And Listeners' Association called for have never been imposed. But the liberation which I so welcomed 40 years ago, has not had the effect for which I hoped. Foolishly, I believed that broadcasters, acting with little or no restraint, would produce an ever-improving quality of programme. The reverse has happened."

He then went on to mention examples of the tacky rubbish TV is now producing, adding, "Radicals believed that standing out against all forms of restraint was an essential part of the mission to set the people free. In fact, the truth is that we delivered them into the hands of broadcasters whose only interest is making money out of human weaknesses... One of the hard facts of television's decline - a painful fact to swallow for unapologetic libertarians - is that liberty, far from producing an improvement in quality, has produced a continual deterioration in standards. Why go to the trouble and expense of producing first-class shows when there is a fortune to be made from rubbish - as long as it is associated with sex and violence?"

"So today, we have to ask ourselves if Mary Whitehouse was right. Was she a prophet whose warnings we ignored when we should have rallied to the defence of the standards she wanted to uphold? Or was she an interfering old prude? Neither question can be answered with a categoric 'Yes' or 'No'... But she did recognise, earlier than the rest of us, that the broadcasters' ability to create a trivial sensation, cheap thrill or sordid shock would be employed time and again as the easy way of achieving notoriety. Notoriety increasingly takes the place of quality and forces the quality of broadcasting down, down, down."

Come back, NVA - all is forgiven.

Answer 4

She was involved in an organisation called "The Festival of Light" a christian organisation that included Cliff Richard and Lord Longford. It campained aginst "Moral Impurity" and had a few concerts in the Albert Hall where wholesome artists sang songs of moral uplift and pure christian behaviour. Give me some horrible smelly and ugly rock band singing about wide open beaver any day.
There was a porn mag called Whitehouse, named after her, also, Lord Longford said that he would bend over backwards to help homosexuals. So accomodating.